


can't pretend

by placeless



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3964054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placeless/pseuds/placeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>brendon realises he's alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't pretend

**Author's Note:**

> i really don’t hate jon, spencer, or ryan. i just had this plot on my mind and an original story wouldn’t have fit it very well, so i decided to make it into a panic! fic.
> 
> warning: probably extremely ooc

—

can’t pretend

—

brendon realises it while they’re in an interview and jon, spencer, and ryan are talking. they’re all talking without him — excluding him without even noticing.

he pretends that it doesn’t bother him. of course he does — that’s what brendon urie does. he puts up a façade of happiness when he’s sad and it fools everyone. it always does.

after the interview, jon, spencer, and ryan all go out for dinner. no one asks him if he wants to go, but spencer does shoot him a look. he just shakes his head in response, heading back to the tour bus.

he strums his guitar until his fingers are bleeding, that night, and he thinks, _you will keep up this façade. you will pretend. you can pretend._

—

a week later, they’re all sitting in the tiny kitchenette in their bus, talking. well, spencer, jon, and ryan are talking — not brendon.

he does pipe up at one point, but jon just retorts, “no one asked _you_ , brendon.”

then they start laughing, and he isn’t sure how to respond. that was an insult, right? the things he’d been taught since a very young age were hurtful and mean?

but he’s an adult now, and he supposes the things that were considered offensive as a child are just harmless now.

—

one day, it’s almost like brendon is invisible. they’re doing a soundcheck, and jon keeps shouting at spencer, who in turn shouts at ryan, who then shouts back to jon. they completely forget about brendon, sitting on the edge of the stage, watching them with dulled eyes.

he wonders what happened — what changed their opinion of him. was he too loud, too obnoxious? well, now he sticks to the shadows, looking at the world from a third person point of view, and they still don’t like him, so he supposes that it’s not that. maybe he’s just become less meaningful.

—

he considers quitting many times, but then decides that he can’t do that. he has nowhere to go — no friends, no job, nothing. he does have a family, but ever since he joined the band they’ve more or less rejected him. many people seem to be rejecting him these days.

setting his face against the cool window, he thinks of the past, of all the things he was. he was more naïve, yes, but he’d take naïvety any day instead of this. not realising that he was being excluded would be nice. he could just play along then, a marionette amongst live humans.

—

brendon can hear ryan, jon, and spencer all laughing in the kitchen. he can tell that they’re high and writing song lyrics, and it hurts because he can remember when he was apart of that, laughing about something spencer just said. he remembers watching ryan’s hand glide across the paper in front of him, scribbling down anything that came to his mind. and he remembers how beautiful he thought it was — he still thinks it is.

ryan is a god among humans, he decides. but gods don’t mix well with forgetful mortals.

—

it’s late one night when he’s alone in the bus that he decides to do it. everything is too silent and he’s been with his own, loud thoughts for most of the time. they are torturous and he wants to get rid of them.

_you can get rid of them,_ a little voice speaks up in the back of his head. _you can, you can._

and he smiles and thinks, _yeah, i can._

—

the next day, he and spencer are alone backstage. spencer is messing around with his outfit when he pipes up and says, “i’m gonna be gone soon, spence.”

he’s surprised he’s acknowledged as his bandmate looks at him with raised eyebrows, the truth of the words not sinking in. “what do you mean?”

“nothing,” he shakes his head. “just, i wanted to say goodbye.”

he looks at him with a strange look. “are you high, man? we have a concert in like an hour.”

a smile is his only response before he gets up and leaves.

—

jon is next. he approaches him after the concert, when everyone’s sweaty and wiped out and just wants to sleep. he says, “i like you, jon.”

he looks up at him, confused. “what?”

“you’re nice. and i know i’m not all that nice, but you’re still nice,” he says.

“what the fuck are you talking about?” the older man asks, leaning back in the folding chair he’s sitting in.

“goodbye,” is all he says and then he gets up and leaves, leaving a confused bandmate behind.

—

ryan is last and definitely the most difficult. he can’t bring himself to approach him at first, but eventually he does. they’re alone in the tour bus, which is new, and brendon decides that he should use this time to his advantage.

“hi,” he says, sitting down on the armchair in their tiny living room.

his friend (is he really his friend, though?) and bandmate looks up from his notebook, eyebrows raised. “hey.”

“i’m going to be gone soon, you know?”

he’s looking back at his notebook now and nods, “mmhmm.”

“and i just wanted to say that i’ll miss you a lot.”

“mmhmm.”

“and you’re a really good person and i don’t think you realise that… and i just wanted to say goodbye.”

“mmhmm.”

the lack of regard hurts like a stab wound and he bites his lip. he had been expecting a bit more than this. maybe an actual conversation? although, that hope now seems farfetched seeing as the past few weeks had been spent being looked over, completely ignored.

he looks at ryan, who is completely focused on the notebook in front of him. he supposes that ryan will be better off without him. for most of the time that they’d known each other, he’d been nothing but a burden. and ryan doesn’t need any more burdens. having brendon urie off his back will be a good thing.

—

later that night, he sits on his bed. he wonders why none of them had more of a reaction — why none of them realised what he was about to do.

in the end, he assumes that it’s either because they don’t care enough to notice, or that they do notice, but just couldn’t care less. he’s not sure which option he likes more.

he gets up, and there’s a tiny flash of hesitance in his mind. he could keep pretending like he did in the beginning; he could continue with this façade, acting like the ignoring doesn’t bother him. he grabs the gun that’s been lying in his desk drawer for a long time — the one he thought he’d never use — and puts it to his head.

the shot of the bullet piercing through his skull is his last reminder that he really can’t pretend anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> that was such a shitty ending whoops


End file.
